Friday, April 27, 2012

"Bugger this, lads! It's Spring! Let's all run into the streets and arsed!"

Pretty much since Easter I've been dealing with the most insane customers I've ever come across. Today, it was explained to me that the reason for this is the recently clement weather patterns: basement-dwellers, those fearful of intemperate climes, and just the generally too-anal-retentive-to-handle-Winter pour forth from their hoarder caverns and venture out into the wider world to bring misery and madness to the naturally more sociable denizens of their provincial realms.

In fancy talk, "all the crazies come out."

Let's see, today I had to argue with a woman that $49 and a $50 gift card, regardless of to what or when they were applied, will always total $99. When I was done, another customer gave me the middle-aged woman equivalent of Mad Props for beating math into another living creature. (This of course caused the Universe to send the original client back for Round 2, but I was expecting this.)

Earlier this week, a woman called and demanded I wander into a particular section of our store to look for a product that may or may not have been there, but refused to think hard enough to try and remember a title, or an author, or any information at all. When I took so long, with help of the department lead mind you, to find said product, she called back, and immediately said to who picked up the phone, "I just spoke to some jerk named David." She then went through the same process with this employee, admitted the product was not in the store and was a special order, but then refused to give her name or contact information because "She runs her own business." Then she used her daughter's name instead, got no result obviously, demanded to speak to the manager, and then hung up in the intervening 30 seconds.

So I'm a jerk now. A jerk who can't do maths.

And screw it. The day after Easter, a woman called in and accused me of being racist. On Easter. Said I helped a white woman before her. Yes, because she rounded a table and got two inched from my face to ask me to get her something instead of waiting on line for my return from the previous customer.

She called me "white boy with curly hair" to my manager. (My other manager was "Tall Skinny Girl.") Called us "those type of people." Said we had no idea what she was feeling.

No ma'am, the two Jewish men have no idea what it's like to be discriminated against. At Easter. And somehow, I don't think she would be consoled by the notion that my family is a smidge African. Had she asked for special treatment I wouldn't even be upset, really; that's just file suit culture. But instead she wished only to yell and complain and to have been victimized.

I have no tolerance for people wishing to play the martyr. I don't even have pity. If you want to self-flagellate, have at it, kid. Go crazy. All I'm going to do is ignore you, and maybe make you out to be a batshit character in a long joke somewhere down the line, and everyone will just assume you're entirely fictitious. All you do is make my life better. So have fun making a scene. I can take any abuse you throw at me, and all I have to to is take three aspirin and a ten minute sigh-break after you leave.

Because your life's so sad, the greatest thing you can aspire to be is a victim.

I'm, just a racist jerk who can't do math, and tells long-ass stories.